Florida Football Recruiting: Gators in pursuit of Stacy Gage

While industry experts have four-star running back Stacy Gage crystal balled to Oklahoma, there are a lot of nuggets from Gage hinting at his interest level with Florida football.

Evaluating just how good Gage is and how hard Billy Napier should push to bring Gage to Gainesville is a bit more complicated of a picture.

Florida Football: Heart and passion

If you don’t follow the recruiting world super close and are not familiar with Gage, you still may have seen a viral video of him floating around during high school season giving a pep talk to his team following a loss.

If you are Billy Napier, you want a guy like that who isn’t just going to go “Aw shucks” following a loss. It fits right in with the culture Napier is trying to build.

Warning that he does use NSFW language.

His on-field play showcases an elusive back that can run between the tackles, but also can plant his foot and cut to the outside.

His sophomore film, during his time with IMG, also highlights a player that isn’t afraid of contact and is willing to use his 200+ frame to shed would-be tacklers.

Coming off his sophomore season, he was rated as high as a top 20 prospect nationally by Rivals.Com and had interest from Alabama, Ohio State, and USC among others.

The complicated part for Florida football is how to evaluate him coming off his junior season. Gage spent his 2022 campaign with Wharton High in Tampa, the same school Dijon Johnson is from. Gage does not have a highlight package posted for the public from his junior season as of this writing. His stat line was okay, running for 704 yards off 139 carries, but he didn’t crack the top 200 overall in Florida for rushing yards.

This could be an offensive line issue, it could be a scheme issue, or it could be Gage genuinely regressing.

Rivals have dropped him out of the top 50 and 247 Sports doesn’t have him in the top 200.

It makes his transfer to powerhouse St. Thomas Aquinas that much more intriguing to see if he regains his elite status. Mind you, it is his third school in three years. If you are someone that wants to read deeper into that, do you.

But if his performance at the UA Orlando camp is any indication, he might still be in the elite category.

And while all the predictions have him going to Oklahoma, Gage has a lot of Florida football references on his Twitter page including his current profile picture.

With Jerrick Gibson seemingly trending away from Gainesville, Gage would be a nice back to add to pair with Chauncey Bowens.